Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1876 — A hat It Costs the British Nation to Support the Royal Family. [ARTICLE]

A hat It Costs the British Nation to Support the Royal Family.

A prominent member of Parliament recently announced in a speech that Queen Victoria’s youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice, was engaged to be married. This statement was subsequently contradicted, but in all probability it was premature rather than erroneous. It has been a feature in the Queen’s policy to marry her daughters early, and it is unlikely she intends the youngest to be an exception to this rule. In this case, Parliament will be, of course, applied to for a provision for the Princess on the same scale as that given to her older sisters, namely, £6,000 a year, which will make the entire sum granted to the Royal family, exclusive of the Royal grant of £385,000 to the Queen herself, £148,000 per annum. This will be the last grant to the present generation, but nine years hence the eldest son of the Prince of Wales will be of age, and an allowance will, in the ordinary course of things, be required for him, even if there has not previously been an application for a further sum for his father; and meanwhile none of the existing pensions, with the exception of that (£6,000) allotted to the Duchess of Cambridge, can be expected to expire. From this point of view, then, the burdens of the British taxpayer are not likely to see any abatement; but, on the other hand, there is a very satisfactory set-off in the fact that under improved management the revenue derived from the vast estates which the Crown surrendered to the country for a fixed Parliamentary grant, of late, is augmented to such a degree that it, last year, nearly covered the whole of this grant, and will doubtless in time far exceed it. The same may be said in regard to the revenues of the two royal Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. In 1865, the Queen received from the former, as Duchess of Lancaster and heiress of John of Gaunt, £20,000; in 1874, £41,000. The increase has for years continued at the rate of an average of some £3,000 a year. This revenue is entirely independent of that granted by the Legislature, and completely at her own disposal. The Duchy of Cornwall revenue has risen from £22,000 in 1824 to £72,000 to-day, and increases at the rate of about £3,000 a year; but it is probable that the increase will ere long take a sudden leap to a much larger sum, by the falling in of leases, ana that the income from this source will render a future Prince of Wales independent of a Parliamentary grant.

Moreover, there is good reason to suppose that the Royal family of England will, like the house of Orleans, be rendered very independent of large grants from the State in time to come by the immense property they will inherit from Queen Victoria, who must be one of the wealthiest persons in the world, quite apart from her State revenue. Not only does she own the valuable properties of Osborne and Balmoral (the latter more than 25,000 acres), both of which, although not sources of revenue, would sell for immense sums, but her accumulations of money must be prodigious. Like many persons who have been bred under pecuniary difficulties, Her Majesty's expenditure has always been exceedingly careful. No establishment in the world has been conducted with more thorodgh economy than hers, and since the death of the Prince Consort and her consequent retirement, an immense saving has been effected in her expenditure. Of her £385,000 a year, it was arranged at the beginning of her reign that all except £96,000 should be divided between the three great departments of her household. Of the £96,000, £60,000 a year was for her “ privy purse,” or private expenses, and £36,000 a year for “contingencies.” Bnt the retiring manner in which the court has lived of late has reduced the expenditure so much that it may be doubted if this £36,000 a year has been touched, Indeed, whether even a great portion of the sums allotted to the Lord Steward, Lord Chamberlain, Ind Master of the Horse, has ever been used. There is, for instance, no need now for half the horses formerly kept, and it is notorious that when more are needed they are hired from livery stables. But besides all these sources of revenue, the Queen has yyt another very considerable. An ec centrrc miser, by name Neill, who died in 11852, left her property amounting to over £500,000. Here is al least £20,‘000 a year. > ‘ .■

It will thus be seen that, while her means have increased, her expenditure has greatly diminished. In the way of charity she doubtless dispenses a good deal, but is by no means profuse, her suboriptions being, in this respect, singularly in contrast with those of the late Queen Dowager. For instance, she only subscribed £IOO on the occasion of the dreadful floods in England last year, while tire Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh gave a like amount Her presente, moreover, are apt to be very little like what might be expected to come from such a source. But, be it remembered, almost her first act on coming to the throne was to pay her father’s debts, and she has never had a debt herself, and now probably, with prescient eye, she is making a provision which will cause her careftil economy to be blessed by her son’s subjects. For nothing is more likely to commend royalty to them than the finding it cheap.— Appleton's Journal.